Basil II of Byzantium

Basil II "the Bulgar-slayer" of Byzantium (958-15 December 1025) was the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 976 to 1025, succeeding John I of Byzantium and preceding Constantine VIII of Byzantium.

Biography
Basil was born in 958 to the House of Makedon, a dynasty of Orthodox Christian Greeks. Basil was the son of Emperor Romanus II of Byzantium, whom he reigned with as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 960 to 963. From 963 to 969 he reigned with Nicephorus II of Byzantium and from 969 to 976 with John I of Byzantium. In 976, at the age of 18, he become Emperor, having been co-emperor since the age of two with three emperors. Basil's early reign was dominated by fighting Anatolian generals, and he stabilized the eastern border of Byzantium against the Arabs. In 1004 he defeated the First Bulgarian Empire at the Battle of Skopje, and in 1014 he won his greatest victory at the Battle of Kleidion, where he killed 15,000 of the 20,000 Bulgarian troops sent to fight him. The survivors were blinded, and king Samuil of Bulgaria died when he saw his blinded army returning home. Basil also Christianized the Kievan Rus, marrying his sister to Vladimir I of Kiev in exchange for military support. He died in 1025 as the leader of the largest incarnation of the Byzantine Empire since the Muslim Conquests of the 7th century, stretching from southern Italy to Turkey.